New Photos #5

The first set of new pictures is just a few shots of Jackson at the playground at Amy’s church, from about six weeks ago. Second set is from earlier this month when I took Jackson to the zoo to meet up with Amy and a group of her students who were taking a field trip that day. It was cool and rainy that day, so all of the pictures are from the indoor Oceans exhibit.

The third set is slightly meatier, from last Sunday when we were out and about downtown and walked around Capitol Commons Park, which is on the southwest corner of Washington and Capitol, across Washington Street from the Statehouse and behind the monstrous new Simon headquarters. Most of the shots are of Jackson cavorting about, but there are some shots of the two George Rickey sculptures that are in the park - part of the new ten piece installation downtown that is the latest in the city’s series of outdoor public art exhibits (and about which I blogged earlier this month).

If you live here in town (or are planning to visit anytime between now and September 7th), you should definitely take an hour or so when you get the chance and go downtown to have a look at these sculptures - especially if you can find the time to go on a slightly breezy day. The sculptures contain no motorized parts of any kind - but all of them move, and all of the motion is created by the wind. It’s a pretty compact little walk, too, to see them all; you don’t have to wander all over downtown like you did for the Julian Opie Signs exhibit, or even as far afield as was necessary to see the Chakaia Booker Mass Transit pieces.

Fourth set is from yesterday at the 500 Festival parade downtown. We picked up takeout food from Shapiro’s and set up on the grounds of the Federal building, near Pennsylvania and North, where the parade started. Usually when we go to the parade, we end up just catching the tail end of it, or maybe half - but yesterday we were sitting down and eating lunch before it even got under way. Jackson, however, did not want to sit still, so we didn’t see much of the parade after we were done eating. The two shots of him standing up are from when he was dancing and running around the grounds of the Federal building where we were sitting to watch the parade.

New Photos #4

Saturday was an excellent day for being out and about and we took advantage of that excellence twice during the day - first going to the zoo in the morning and then going to Southeastway Park for a picnic later in the afternoon. Amy’s punk ass brother and his fiancée were supposed to go with us, but begged off at the last minute, so it was just the three of us, and a boatload of food. Nothing particularly photo-worthy took place at the park during the picnic, so there are just two sets of photos from the zoo. The first set has various shots of Jackson wandering about the zoo, feeding the giraffe, and eating lunch. The second set contains various shots of the new Alaskan brown bear cubs hamming it up for the onlookers.

The pictures of the bears might look a little bit odd, and if they do it’s because they were taken from behind glass. The bear exhibit has a space where you can see the bears directly and also a space where you can watch from behind glass while they frolic in the water. They were frolicking while we were there, and I was only able to get a look at them from behind the glass. Hopefully the pictures are adequate.

New Photos #3

Okay, at long last here are some recent photos of Jackson. The first set just has a few photos of Jackson mugging for the camera, chewing on a hat, and playing in a big cardboard box. Buy all the toys you want for your little critters, and they'll still wind up having the most fun with empty cardboard cartons and big stacks of Pizza Express cups. The second set is from one part of an excellent walk along the downtown canal last month. (The largest part of why there have been so few new photos of Jackson is that we did not get out and about much on Sunday afternoons this winter because Jackson tended to get very cranky very quickly, a situation that does not make for good times out on the town. On this particular day, however, he was in excellent spirits, and we walked a considerable amont of the Canal Walk.) The final set is also part of the walk on the canal. When we walked by the State Museum, Jackson became very interested in the giant mastodont statues just off the sidewalk outside the museum, and he walked over the pebbly gravel and around among them long enough for me to get quite a few pictures. Hopefully, as the weather gets nicer and there are more chances to get out and about, there will be more opportunities to get pictures of Jackson exploring the world.

Informer

New Photos #2

The first batch of new photos over on my Picasa photo page is of Jackson and Dorothy playing together at the Children's Museum Playscape on Christmas Eve. This was the first time Jackson and Dorothy had met each other, even though Dione and I have sort of been talking about getting them together for playdates. The second batch is just a bunch of different shots of Jackson with funny expressions on his face - from various points in time over the last couple of months.

New Photos #1

It’s been awhile since I updated the ol’ photo site, although I really meant to get around to it sooner than the last day of my week of vacation. I’ve had a surprisingly full week considering the fact that we went no further afield than Bloomington. We went to Zoo Boo last Sunday, I went to Bloomington by myself on Monday and to the Obama rally by myself on Thursday, Amy and I went to Bloomington and Nashville and then the Southport football game on Friday, and all of us went to the Irvington Halloween Festival and Waterman’s Farm Market yesterday.

Brief sports-related aside: After a goofy regular season in which they went 6-3, including a loss they forfeited because of an ineligible player, Warren Central started sectionals off with a bang, waxing the last undefeated team in 5A, Hamilton Southeastern, 49-21 on Friday night. Additionally, the once-sad-sack Southport Cardinals, who finished the regular season 8-1 and ranked #4 in class 5A (AP), also started off sectionals with a bang, pounding Perry Meridian 56-35. I don’t know that Southport had won a total of eight games before this year in all the time that Amy has been teaching there; but they were lights out this year - largely on the legs of tailback Nick Turner (a 6’0”, 180 pound senior that I would love to see play college football at a place where the team colors won’t change).

Okay, so that was a not-so-brief aside. Whatever. First set of photo updates is from our trip to Zoo Boo last Sunday. Amy found a little green dragon costume for Jackson and we got him dressed up and walked him around the zoo, with all the other kids who were dressed up. He’s at that stage where he’ll be pushing the stroller along from behind and then - without warning, of course - simply stop pusing and begin walking quickly in the opposite direction.

In the next set, taken at the Irvington Halloween Festival yesterday, note the fake human head inside the glass globe on the ground. Also note the little green dragon gazing in what appears to be wonder at said globed head. This is the same little Jackson who was practically quaking in his boots when we took him to one of those Halloween stores so Amy could look for a costume for him. And yet the talking, cackling, howling head in glass globe fascinates. Uncanny.

Third set, and last update for now, has shots from the Waterman’s Farm Market Fall Harvest Festival we went to yesterday. Jackson went on his first hayride, and we picked a pumpkin out of the vast - and extremely muddy - pumpkin patch. The pumpkin is actually way more lopsided than I thought it was when we picked it out. It may wind up becoming the goofiest-looking jack-o-lantern in history. Its innards may wind up becoming pumpkin cheesecake - that remains to be seen.

Wedding Photos (Not Mine)

I mentioned in a previous post that my buddy Steve got married last month. He sent out a link to the wedding photos earlier this week, which can be found here. I haven't looked through all of them yet, but there's one that I suspect is not in the bunch. One of the more amusing things we noted that day was the house across the street from the church. There is - or was, at least, a month ago - a couch perched on part of its roof. Intrepid amateur shutterbug that I am, I snapped a few shots of said couch on said roof of said house - shown below, for your viewing pleasure.

Picture Pages, Picture Pages, Fill Your Day With Picture Pages

I have been deplorably lax here lately when it comes to posting photos on my Picasa photo site. August is almost all the way in the books, and nary a shot. I've taken plenty of pictures, just haven't managed to organize them, nor even upload all of them. However, tonight I have made a bit of progress, so without further ado, here are some links to various things I have taken pictures of during the month of August. (I added a link to my photo site up there next to the picture of Jackson and me.)

As some of you know by now, my very good friend Steve got married on August 2nd. I was one of Steve's groomsmen, so I didn't get any shots of the ceremony itself, but I did get some pictures of Steve hanging around before it started, and some of Steve and Kendra during their photo shoot after the ceremony. Click here for a small representative sample of shots from Steve's wedding.

The 2008 edition of the Indiana State Fair came and went this month, too. The three of us went on both Wednesdays during the 12-day run - the first time I can recall that we had the chance to go on opening day. Jackson was - wait for it - a cranky little turd both times, at the beginning and end of the first day, and pretty much throughout the second trip. For reasons passing understanding, he can't seem to fall asleep unless he's in his crib. This, clearly, is not the result of any genetic code that I passed on to him. Nevertheless, there are some pictures from the first day, including a couple of Jackson trying his first corn dog.

I have more pictures to post of various other things we've been up to this month, but I don't have them ready just yet. There will be some pictures from the Irvington Farmers Market and a set from our second trip to the fair, so I'm pretty sure that this post will be updated in a day or two.